Ben Craven stopped in for a Something Else! Sitdown with Preston Frazier to discuss constructing his new album ‘Monsters From the Id‘:
PRESTON FRAZIER: It’s been a while since your last full album (2016’s Last Chance to Hear). What sparked your daring new release, Monsters From the Id?
BEN CRAVEN: Last Chance to Hear was an experiment where I released individual songs or pieces of music before the album was actually finished. As soon as I felt a track was somewhat representative of the way it was likely to end up on the album, I put it out there for anyone to hear. The aim was to bring people along on the journey so the music would already be familiar by the time the album was completed. There were many advantages to this approach, including a forced work ethic and having to make major artistic decisions quickly. But one of the challenges was that I felt bound by those same decisions when it finally came time to sequence the album. In retrospect, I think the flow of the music should have been better. So I resolved on the next album that flow, form, cohesion and musical interplay would be the order of the day. Or, put simply, long and interconnected tracks – side-long epics!
PRESTON FRAZIER: Patrons from your Patreon page have an idea about the level of detail you put into this project. How did you sketch out the concept of centering the album on two epic songs? Did you start with a less ambitious song-oriented approach initially?
BEN CRAVEN: Surprisingly, it started out even more ambitiously. We’re talking Topographic proportions. I had never attempted a traditional side-long epic before, despite always wanting to. I had always thought it was beyond me. But the more you write and record, the more confident you get and the more you start competing with yourself and want to out-do everything you’ve done before. So, the time finally felt right to give the epics a shot. The structure of this album was directly inspired by early Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis and Mike Oldfield. The main difference is I still harbor delusional ambitions of becoming a film composer, so my approach was always going to revolve around using a wider orchestral palette. The length of these tracks was deliberately crafted for optimal sound quality on vinyl, just in case I can get them pressed some day. In fact, there was originally a third epic in the mix entitled “Altaira” which I ended up holding over for the next album – not for artistic reasons, but simply economy. Vinyl is costly enough to manufacture, let alone two of them.
PRESTON FRAZIER: How did you construct “Die Before You Wake,” and “Amnis Flows Aeternum”?
BEN CRAVEN: Typically when I write I don’t sit down, start at the beginning and work through chronologically to the end. I’m after little gems, tiny flashes, those shots of dopamine that move me and inspire me to keep going. Only after the initial ideas are down does my arranger brain kick in and start sculpting them with instrumentation, variations and counterpoint melodies. Then I start forming a bigger picture of how the pieces can fit together. So I had all these little bits of music and, quite literally, I put them all up on a big board and moved them around like a jigsaw to form two suites. It was an incredibly fun thing to do. It also involved changing tempos and keys so the pieces flowed musically as well as conceptually.
Now, this could be misconstrued as a contrived activity, but because the individual pieces were solid enough, I felt no such guilt. I guess in the back of my mind I was trying to channel the way Brian Wilson-constructed SMiLE for the Beach Boys. At the end of the day, the main difference between “Die Before You Wake” and “Amnis Flows Aeternum” is that the former got all the weird time signatures!
PRESTON FRAZIER: Your album also contains edited versions of “Die Before You Wake,” “Wicked Delights,” “Guiding Voice” and “Amnis Flows Aeternum.” Why did you decide to provide the single-length songs?
BEN CRAVEN: Despite the way this album was constructed, I am not averse to short songs. I was also curious how this music would translate to my older way of working, circa my first album Two False Idols. The single edits essentially form an EP of their own, a parallel universe where longer tracks do not exist. But quite frankly, we live in a singles world now, presuming that popular music is even still relevant with all the other more immediate distractions. And anyone will tell me, and they did, that it’s sheer madness to release an album with two long songs on it and expect anyone to listen. But the heart wants what it wants, and if nobody is willing to take a chance anymore, what’s the point? Realistically, the single edits are a trail of breadcrumbs, for streaming services, for social media, for radio, for promotion, hopefully leading people to discover a much bigger picture and a world to explore.
PRESTON FRAZIER: On my initial listen, I was pleasantly surprised that the songs had vocals. Did you initially consider an all-instrumental album?
BEN CRAVEN: Absolutely. For quite a long time, this album was going to be purely instrumental. But once I proved to myself I could actually do it, the urge to go through with it subsided. Truth be told, I felt there were some interesting melodies in there that would sound best with a human voice. So I had to drag myself, kicking and screaming, off into the dungeon to write the lyrics.
PRESTON FRAZIER: What do the lyrics contribute to the work?
BEN CRAVEN: That is precisely the key question I kept asking myself. The music, I felt, was already self-sufficient, completely over the top, bouncing playfully between doom and gloom and high camp. What could lyrics possibly add to that? Should they convey a big message and a grand concept? Or should they be self-confrontational and highly personal? How could they complement the intensity of the music? The answer, eventually, was that I was writing for an actor on the stage – for a grand, theatrical, somewhat impenetrable performance, and no longer for myself as a traditional singer-songwriter. Once I removed myself from the equation, all the self consciousness fell away and the words flowed surprisingly easily. The lyrical themes are very deliberate and clear to me, but there’s also a veneer of parody so I could have some fun with them.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Monsters From the Id could work as a soundtrack to a big-budget science fiction movie. Your keyboard, drums, bass and guitar work are fitting with the epic scale of the compositions. Did you consider making this a band album or calling in guest players?
BEN CRAVEN: The best reason to call on other players is because they can deliver a performance quite different from something I can do. Witness William Shatner! This album however feels so dense and layered that no single performer would really stand out. The writing was also very personal, very insular, totally ego-driven and completely autocratic, in the most positive sense possible. To have presented it as a band project would have been disingenuous. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy working in a band context, because I do – but it’s a different mindset. I’m not really comfortable bringing in music I’ve already written, since I feel it negates the purpose of being in a band and diminishes the contributions of the other players.
PRESTON FRAZIER: What did you start the process with – guitar, keys, a drum program?
BEN CRAVEN: Typically my process starts with unplanned, fortuitous, fleeting moments of inspiration, generally in the most inconvenient location possible and frequently at the worst time possible. I have to run to the first instrument I can find and record it before my conscious self gets in the way and tries to turn it into something familiar. Piano is usually best, because all the notes are in front of me and I don’t automatically fall into muscle memory like I do on guitar. If I’m lucky enough to record the piano session “in the box,” I’ll continue the session there, find the right tempo and start experimenting with other instruments.
PRESTON FRAZIER: What instruments did you use in the final recordings? What did you use for tracking?
BEN CRAVEN: There are all manner of guitars in there. Acoustics with different tunings, electrics, 12-strings, baritone, lap steel, mandolin – even the coral sitar on my Variax got an outing. I used a five-string bass for the bulk of the bottom end work, along with a Taurus pedal, but I kept the 4-string Rickenbacker 4001 for those special moments when I really wanted the bass to cut through. The orchestra was built up from the best samples I could get my hands on from various sources. I would have loved to have recorded it on a big stage with real players, but I also enjoy eating regularly and keeping a roof over my head. My tracker of choice these days is Reaper. It can do everything the more expensive apps can, but without the frequent major upgrades I used to be enslaved by.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Tell us about why you decided to offer a DVD/5.1 mix of the album? What recording challenges did that create?
BEN CRAVEN: This is an album I hope people will dedicate some time to experiencing. One way to encourage that is with a 5.1 mix. There’s a good chance that someone who, for instance, has a dedicated listening area with a surround speaker setup might be interested in listening to an album all the way through! I am personally a great fan of surround mixes, not least because it’s easier to hear what all the individual instruments are doing, when they would otherwise be obfuscated in a stereo mix. Surprisingly, there are no major hurdles in producing a surround mix if you have a good stereo mix to work with already. It’s just a matter of putting in a little extra effort. In my case I really wanted to separate the stereo planes for each instrument and give them some depth within the room. My surround mix is probably closer to traditional quadraphonic than cinematic 5.1 because I’m not a big fan of the center speaker for music.
I was not equipped to go all Dolby Atmos yet unfortunately, since some of the key software was only available within the Apple ecosystem. Atmos is, of course, the flavor of the year and will go on to be the new standard if it isn’t already. One of the key reasons for that, besides extremely clever marketing, is an Atmos receiver can reconfigure the mix for any number of speakers in a listening room, even stereo. Someone listening to an Atmos track over a streaming service can enjoy an immersive binaural experience using normal earphones (in theory!), lowering the cost of entry to consumers. But I’m not yet sure if that’s something casual listeners even want, versus a good stereo mix, if they’re listening at all.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Anything else you’d like to share with your supporters?
BEN CRAVEN: I have a knack of ending interviews with doom and gloom observations about the music business, and it gets kind of grim. Bandcamp has just been sold to a multinational. I think its days of remaining artist-friendly are numbered. I used to think patronage was the answer for smaller indies, but that space is now becoming crowded with famous artists who were once on major labels, and patrons have limited budgets. And, of course, the live scene has been decimated. My main focus now is trying to keep the art alive, making a bold statement, and attempting to get it heard. The only way to do that truly without compromise is to not expect to make any living from it whatsoever.
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